*Benny on the Case by Wesley King

Benny on the Case introduces a sleuth with Mosaic Down Syndrome and an indomitable, loyal partner.

*Benny on the Case by Wesley King. Simon & Schuster, 2025, 273 pages.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 8-10

Recommended for: ages 8-14

It’s a long-anticipated, but anxious day for Benny Brooks: his first day in a standard sixth-grade classroom. As a boy with Mosaic Down, he doesn’t have a lot of the symptoms that go with that condition. He can read and speak clearly. He likes math and working with his hands. But “it looks like I’ve got Down syndrome. And I do . . . just the rarer kind with the funny name, like I’m made up of little pieces of color that form some bigger shape called Benny.” His looks have been his destiny, but his special-ed teacher knows he’s capable of doing sixth-grade work.

Day One is kind of a disaster, owing to class bully Mark (Benny already knows to look out for him) and the saccharine, unsubtle digs of Ashlin. To make it worse, he forgot his lunch, forcing his mum to take time out of a busy day and barge into the school cafeteria yelling for him. But there’s one saving grace: the other new kid. Salma’s has just moved to Newfoundland from Seattle to be closer to her mother’s family. But her father is originally from Tunisia, which accounts for Salma’s darker skin and knowledge of Arabic. Thus marked as a foreigner, she comes in for the same kind of treatment as Benny. The two form a natural alliance against the regulars.

Up to now, Benny’s best friend has been a resident of his mother’s retirement home on the bluff. Mr. Tom encourages the boy’s natural mechanical talent as they work his fishing boat Maggie, meanwhile serving as a sounding board and substitute father figure. Benny’s mum doesn’t like the boat, or the sea, because that’s how she lost Benny’s dad—but soon she has something else to worry about when one of her residents is robbed. Then another.

The second burglary unfortunately occurs during a visit from the county inspector. Though sympathetic, he informs Mrs. Brooks that further incidents could lead to Starflower by the Sea Retirement Home being shut down, which would be disaster for the residents, not to mention Benny and his mother. Salma, whose grandmother is also a resident, feels a personal stake in the problem. What if she and Benny could do some detective work of their own?

There’s a lot going on in these 200+ pages besides a standard whodunnit: Benny is branching out from a sheltered environment, dealing with personal conflicts, struggling with change, confronting physical decline and death, facing down a bully, and learning self-confidence. It’s all told in Benny’s voice in the dialect of his island (and the author’s home). A guide to Newfoundland slang at the beginning of the book cues the reader to frequent insertions of “b’ys,” and “whadda y’ats” (which intrigued me, so I had to look up videos—the accent sounds a lot like Irish).

There’s very little mention of God here, even in talks about death. When advising Benny about how to deal with Mark, Mr. Tom asserts that most people want to be good; they just don’t know how. The Bible has some disagreement abut that, but Mr. Tom’s counsel to do what’s right even if it’s not reciprocated proves true when Benny puts it into practice: “I had a bunch of bad things happening right now, but I didn’t want to act like a bad person because of them.” He learns to stand up for himself and face opposition in such a winning way I was kind of sad to say goodbye (or good-by’s?) to him. Maybe he’ll be back.

Bottom Line: Outstanding character development and a mystery besides—what’s not to like?

Also at Redeemed Reader:

• Reviews: Unbound, a picture-book biography of Judith Scott, displays the innate ability of an artist with Down Syndrome. Someplace Called Home, a historical novel about the Oklahoma dust bowl, features a character with Down syndrome—also named Benny.
• Review: Gordon Korman’s Old School features another protagonist who lives in a retirement home who must learn to live in a wider world when he moves from home to public school.
• Resource: Don’t miss our Mystery Booklist for Teens and Tweens!

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